The present invention is directed to a water-based correctional facility, a water-based correctional system, and method of making the same. More specifically, a water-based correctional facility can be constructed of a new or used ship hull or ship, which is placed in contact with the bottom of a body of water at a pre-selected site. The body of water would generally be a lake, river, port, bay or sea, preferably located near a major metropolitan center, or in an accessible location near land.
The planning and construction of land-based correctional facilities have in the past been plagued with a number of problems. For example, obtaining land for such use is expensive and requires long-term planning and implementation due to the legal and political hurdles that must be overcome. Seeking the placement of a correctional facility within a community requires county planning, re-zoning consistent with the county ordinances and master zoning plan, and will often result in a referendum submitted to the voters living near the proposed construction site. These requirements result in some degree of unpredictability whether or not a correctional facility will ever be approved within the community. The placement of correctional facilities on a state level again involves many legal and political issues and problems. Correctional facilities provide many jobs and constituents around the state continuously vie for placement of such job-generating facilities within their communities.
It may be desirable to place correctional facilities near a location where criminal activity is the highest within a state to facilitate legal processing of criminals, minimize the substantial costs incurred in transporting prisoners around the state, provide the benefits of not dislocating the prisoner from his or her community or family, etc. Generally, major metropolitan areas are the centers of criminal activity, especially hardened criminal activity such as drug dealing, armed robbery, rape, murder and other violent crimes typically associated with hardened criminals that end up with sentences that require placement in a correctional facility. The result is that most major correctional facilities, especially for hardened criminals, are placed substantially distant from the centers of criminal activity since land is expensive and unavailable at or near major metropolitan areas, and the legal and political issues and problems are exponential as the facility is placed closer to the center of the metropolitan area.
The ideal situation would be placement of correctional facilities within major metropolitan areas to facilitate the legal processing of criminals and to reduce the cost and time of transportation between courts in the metropolitan area, which typically try and process criminals for crimes that occur within the metropolitan area. Further, major metropolitan areas provide a large employment force that is readily available for operating the facility.
A water-based correctional facility placed along the waterfront at or near a major metropolitan area provides numerous benefits over a land-based correctional facility in that the land under these bodies of waters is typically already owned by the state, the land is already available requiring no razing of existing structures, requires no re-zoning of existing parcels, and can be prepared for receiving the correctional facility relatively inexpensively compared with the costs of constructing a foundation for a land-based correctional facility. Further, the downtown sections of many metropolitan areas are edged by waterfront providing excellent access to courts located downtown with the benefit of a large downtown police force to ensure security and prevent successful escapes from the facility.
At this time, there have been a number of proposals for converting ferries, barges, and other relatively small watercraft into temporary restraining or short-term jail facilities. The type of security provided on these proposed converted watercraft is minimal and is generally for use with prisoners awaiting trial or soon to be released prisoners completing relatively short terms for less severe offenses.
The present invention is directed to a correctional facility that is water-based or supported on the bottom of a body of water. The term "correctional facility" is used to describe a high-security, long-term prison substantially self-contained with a warden and full-time staff for incarcerating prisoners for substantially long prison terms such as one year to life. The facility includes large dining facilities for feeding the staff and prisoners, hospital facilities, counseling facilities, recreational facilities (indoor and outdoor), work areas for manufacturing articles for the state, one or more high-security peripheral walls, fences or other restraining means, guard towers for maintaining high security along the perimeter restraining means, and other necessary features of conventional land-based correctional facilities.
The features and requirements of a water-based correctional facility are substantially different from those of the proposed short-term jail facilities. For example, the water-based correctional facility must be substantially more stable and prevented from movement due to currents, tides, winds and other physical forces in order to ensure safety, high security and to prevent seasickness of persons on the facility. Some of the proposed short-term jail facilities appear to be floating or temporarily partly beached on shore.
The correctional facility of the present invention includes a hull placed in contact with the bottom of the body of water in which the facility is disposed to provide a foundation and to assure no movement of the correctional facility during its lifetime, unless so desired. Thus, once the hull of the correctional facility is set in place, the correctional facility is supported soundly in a manner similar to a land-based correctional facility.
The correctional system of the present invention utilizes a converted ship or ship hull. Preferably, the correctional system includes a pier positioned adjacent the hull of the correctional facility. The pier can be located near or on land, but is preferably water-based to provide a moat effect around the correctional facility/pier combination and the waterfront. A vehicular bridge connects the water-based pier to the land at the waterfront. The pier provides a means for loading staff, prisoners, supplies, etc., onto and off the correctional facility, and parking and storage space for operation of the facility. The vehicular bridge restricts pedestrian or vehicle access between the facility and land for providing another measure of security.
Many major highway and interstate systems include sections that pass along waterfronts of metropolitan areas. The present correctional system preferably includes connecting the correctional facility via the vehicular bridge by a ramp into such highway or interstate systems for facilitating transportation to and from the correctional facility. Thus, escorted prisoners and staff are provided with easy access between areas located near the metropolitan area, such as local suburbs, or distant from the correctional facility. Since correctional facilities are limited in number for each state, typically prisoners from a region or regions of a state are transported substantial distances to the regional correctional facility once being sentenced. Further, this type of access to the correctional facility provides additional security for transporting prisoners by further limiting and restricting prisoner contact with the general public during transportation via interstate highways, rather than by ordinary roads and city streets.
Preferably, a used ship would serve as the basis for the invention. At the present time, used ship hulls are readily available at relatively low cost because of a presently existing depressed oil and/or gas tanker market. The present world-wide glut of oil has resulted in substantially less intercoastal shipping of oil and gas.
The construction of correctional facilities is constrained by various government and agency standards to provide a reasonable living condition for the prisoners. An important aspect includes the amount of light exposure that each prison cell receives, and requirements on outdoor and indoor recreational areas and exposure time. The correctional facility of the present invention provides sufficient light to a multiplicity of prison cells by locating these prison cells above a main level. Also, by placing the multiplicity of prison cells above the main level and restricting access below the main level, a measure of high security is provided.
Generally, a majority of the life-sustaining needs of food, water, medical care, etc., are located below the main level or can be controlled from below the main level so as to isolate prisoners located above the main level from these life-sustaining needs to prevent a long-term prison holdout or riot. Further, an escape route by prisoners from the multiplicity of prison cells located above the main deck is substantially inhibited due to the main level being located a substantial distance above the level of the water. To further inhibit escape from the main level, the multiplicity of prison cells are encompassed by a perimeter security means such as two perimeter, high-security fences one located within the other. Elevated guard towers are preferably provided to enhance the security of the perimeter security means.
The present invention includes a method of converting an existing ship or ship hull into the correctional facility. In the event that a existing ship hull is utilized to construct the correctional facility, less modification is needed because there is no superstructure to be removed from the ship as would be necessary in the conversion of a completed ship.
Most of the ships contemplated for conversion into the correctional facility of the present invention have cambered steel main deck portions at positions other than where superstructure exists. For example, a conventional oil tanker includes a superstructure with a large steel cambered deck located forward of the superstructure extending to the stem of the ship. This main deck portion is cambered so that water that reaches the main deck of the oil tanker in heavy seas is quickly drained to prevent the ship from becoming top heavy and unstable for any substantial duration of time. Thus, the conversion of an oil tanker into the present correctional facility requires the conversion of the main deck of the ship by removing machinery and superstructure located on or above the main deck and by removing the cambered steel deck or providing means for leveling the cambered steel deck to achieve a substantially flat main level. The multiplicity of prison cells are then constructed on or above the flat main level.